New Mexico Aims to Support Home Visiting Professionals

Feb 9, 2016

The New Mexico Children, Youth, and Families Department (CYFD)--the state grantee of the Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) program--is committed to supporting home visiting staff across early childhood systems, regardless of the model, to provide quality programs and to ensure that they have the understanding, awareness, and language to help families support the social and emotional development of their very young children.

Home visitors are required to be trained in relationship-based practice, pregnancy and early parenthood, parent-child interaction, infant-child growth and development, community resources, cultural and linguistic heritage and other related areas. The state has developed a manual about use of distance technology to support training, technical assistance and reflection to support home visitors serving rural areas.

The guidance on social-emotional development focuses particularly on families who face attachment challenges. The Circle of Security is a state-sponsored program that provides training on reading and responding to childrens cues as well as building their sense of safety and comfort. All staff members of home visiting programs funded by MIECHV receive training from the Circle of Security parent education group version. Data is collected using the Circle of Security screening interview. They also receive at least 2 hours per month of individual reflective supervision, and they have access to a masters-level licensed mental health professional for consultation. See https://cyfd.org/content/home-visiting